Advantages

Disadvantages

A half decent freezer bottle

I work in an office environment and unfortunately I am hot all year round, mainly because of a thyroid condition. I like to try and stay cool wherever possible so after I read about this drinks bottle last year I've had it on my 'things to buy' bookmarks list for ages and finally when I ordered some items from Matalan I was able to order one of these too for just £3.00.

This is a plastic sports bottle with a pull up and suck lid (is there an actual term for those?) and within the bottle there is a small cylinder that can be removed and placed in the freezer. This is full of fluid and once you've chilled it in the freezer you just place it back in to your bottle, fill your bottle with cold water from the tap and it will stay cool for hours. I wanted this because I am often running short on time at work and so I don't want to be running for cool water every half hour on roasting hot days and so I figured that this would be a good compromise allowing me to have cool water without wasting so much time for at least the first half of my work day. The cylinder is simple to place just underneath the lid and it takes just a few seconds to remove and put back in place so it doesn't delay me leaving for work or anything like that.

This bottle is well designed and is therefore easy to hold when I am enjoying a sip of cold water. I keep this bottle upright in my bag on the way to work and it is kept upright at all times as if I have been not strong enough when tightening the lid up then it is prone to leaking and slowly but surely I will end up with a damp handbag or gym bag.

This bottle is simple to clean out and despite only keeping water in it I do have to wash it regularly because I find that all sports bottle smell a little funky after a few days if you don't clean them thoroughly. That might just be me being sensitive but I doubt it!

I have been using this bottle for around 5 months now on and off and apart from the leaking (which I've come to expect from so many sports bottles) it is lasting quite well. The lid still comes up and down just as easy as it ever did before but it hasn't loosened up too much either. The plastic of this bottle is nice and sturdy still and looks almost as dent free and smooth as it did the day I first bought it.

In all I am going to give this 3/5. The feature of the frozen centre is fantastic and it does keep my water incredibly cool and enjoyable to drink, however, the bottle does leak slightly and this can make quite a damp patch if not stood upright in a bag during my 20 minute walk to work, also, when this holds about 400ml of water this can be quite a lot of water to go everywhere and it really does! I can't grumble too much about the quality of this as £3.00 is one of the cheapest water bottles that I have bought in recent years and this is one of the most effective that I use so often. This is mainly because of the freezer stick and this is the reason why I would definitely recommend this, 3/5 or not!

Comments

Advantages

Disadvantages

Could have been so much better with an insulated bottle.

We were shopping in Matalan earlier in the year and noticed these bottles for £3 each. At the time, we weren't really interested in purchasing yet another drinks bottle for the kids, but then I noticed that this was a freezer stick drinks bottle, which then sort of drew my attention and interest towards it and sounded like a good idea. So we bought 2 of them to try out through the summer months.

From the outside, the bottle looks just like any other drinks bottle. With a capacity of 14oz (which is a reasonable quantity), the bottle has an hour glass shape to it, being made from a clear plastic which has a blue tinge to it. The top is large and screw off, so very easy to refill, and the spout is a straight pull up to drink and push down to seal off. When we've used it for various outings, it has never leaked, despite being carried around buried in rucksacks etc. So the spout bit seems to do a good job at sealing the container.

So if it is just like any other drinks bottle, why bother with it? Well the clue is in the title - Matalan 'Freezer Stick' Drinks Bottle - and if you look closely, there is a small tube/stick structure in the centre of the bottle running down into the fluid from under the cap, and this is the key that makes this bottle different from other drinks bottles and special. The idea is that you place the stick separately into a freezer to freeze it up, and then, when you've filled the bottle up with fluid, you insert the frozen stick into the fluid, where it is held in place by a disc which is hidden in the top of the bottle under the cap. The intention is that it then chills the fluid drink down to give you a nice 'ice cold' drink from the bottle.

Does it work? Well sort of. Yes it does eventually chill your drink down, but in doing so, it also does eventually thaw itself out, meaning that your drink then warms up again to ambient temperature. But this is a slow process. It will keep your drink cooler for longer, just as a freezer block would do so in a picnic hamper or chiller box. But the duration of that coolness will depend on a number of factors - how you store the full bottle (in your hand or in a bag), how often you drink, outside temperature etc.

When we've been in the car out on a journey, with the kids storing the bottle in the foot wells of an air conditioned car, the chilling has lasted fairly well, perhaps up to an hour to hour and a half. If we put it in an insulated lunch box, you can perhaps get a few more hours chilling out of it. But when we have been out with the dogs on a hot day, carrying the bottles in our hands or within a rucksack, we're lucky to get an hour out of it, and if you drink the water in the meantime and then refill, it is even less.

In summary, this is a cheap drinks bottle with a good idea that could be improved further if the bottle was more insulated or double skinned to keep more of that cooling effect in. As it is, the cooling effect is just a short term treat, which may just about make it to lunchtime in a child's insulated lunchbox, and with my kids, the novelty unfortunately soon wore off because it always took so long to re-freeze the stick. So as a recommendation, I would say it is perhaps only worth 3 stars.

Comments

Advantages

Disadvantages

a good bottle

==Matalan Freezer Stick Drinks Bottle==

When Jack was due to start his proper big boy school in September I had to go out shopping and kit him out for all the items that he would need throughout his day in Reception class. Seeing as he would be having packed lunches rather than school dinners I needed to buy him a drinks bottle which is where this bottle from Matalan comes in.

Luckily enough I was able to get the majority of his uniform and other items from the shop on the one day which did save me a lot of time and effort and I really didn't think this bottle was something that I would end up getting somewhere like Matalan but I must say that I am very impressed with the bottle.

For a good price of £3 what you get is a blue plastic bottle with a sports bottle top on and inside is a stick joined on to a thin cap that fits underneath the main bottle top. This stick holds fluid inside which can be popped into the freezer to create an ice cube type adaption to your drink and works at keeping it icy cold throughout the day.

The look of the bottle is pretty good and the blue plastic suited Jack perfectly although I can't say that I saw a pink version on the day I purchased this bottle. There is a nice curved shape to the drinks bottle which makes it slightly easier to hold and drink from especially for those with little hands. The sports bottle cap Jack finds very easy to drink from even if his drinking speed does slow down somewhat when compared too drinking from a cup.

The main cap of the bottle is screwed on into place and this has to be done tight too ensure that the bottle doesn't leak or drip which it is rather prone to do and has caused a wet back pack on more than one occasion when the lid wasn't fastened tight enough.

The bottle itself is still doing well but we do still have until the end of June for this bottle to have lasted the term and I am not 100% sure that it will last that long. The bottle top part that goes in Jacks mouth is starting to look a little chewed and the plastic bottle itself is a little dented in places even though the plastic is fairly sturdy. I can't think what he does with it at lunch time!

All in all I feel for the relatively cheap price the bottle is not a bad purchase. Even if it lasts till the spring I think we have had our monies worth out of it and I can't complain. It holds a good amount of water/juice at 300ml and serves its purpose well so I feel that a 4 out of 5 stars is well deserved and its just a shame its not a little more hard wearing otherwise it would have got top marks.

Recommended

I do hope that this has been of some help/interest to you

Many thanks for taking the time to read.

Comments

Advantages

Disadvantages

A good bottle for the gym/hot days

Last summer I was mooching around Matalan with one of my friends. She needed to go and was taking her son and as she knew I was at a loose end she invited me and my son to tag along! I hadn't intended on buying anything to be honest but the weather had been pretty warm and whilst in the store my son spotted the freezer stick drinks bottle and told me that one of the girls in his class at school had one and he was adamant he needed one too, just a blue one not pink!

The freezer stick drinks bottle is a blue sporty looking drinks bottle which has a slight curve to the middle making it easier to grip. I have to say that the bottle is quite wide and to be honest my hand doesn't go all the way around it so I wondered how easy my son would find it to hold but the curve in the bottle does seem to aid this. The bottles base is made from a clear blue plastic so you can see your drink through it which I like purely because you know how much you have left. The top of the bottle features a standard looking drinking nozzle which you can pull up to drink from and obviously press down again to seal it. My son was used to this kind of way of drinking because he has drunk fruit shoots and such like in the past which also use this kind of spout. The bottle doesn't have a lid which goes over the top of the spout so it is literally just a case of pulling it up and having a drink when required which I think is a good thing, especially if you were to be using the bottle for the gym or something.

What is different about this bottle in comparison to others I have seen on the market is that it features a disk which slots in the top of the bottle when required as well as a blue plastic stick which can be frozen and then inserted in the disk and your drink and in turns gives you an ice cube effect almost in that your drink is kept nice and cold, even on hot days. Now obviously the freezer stick will become thawed at some point but usually the drink is all gone by then anyway!

We attempted to use this bottle for my son's school water bottle as he has to take one each day but we found that it wasn't entirely leak proof and so it wasn't really worth having it in his bag being carried and no doubt being shaken from side to side and then leaking on his reading book and such like. I have used this bottle personally when exercising and found that it is fine so I do wonder if my son didn't manage to fully seal the drinking cap when he used it to be honest because it is quite stiff. My son made use of this cup whilst out playing this summer and would often take it outside in the hot weather when he was on the trampoline and things.

The drinks bottle holds 14oz of liquid apparently and all I know is that it holds a decent amount and it is certainly enough for me should I need to take it to the gym and for my son when he used it in the summer months. Best of all this drinks bottle costs just £3.00 at Matalan which I think is a very reasonable price and something to perhaps look out for if you need a new gym bottle which will keep your drink nice and cold.